Chicken Soup for the Dark Wizard's Soul
by fireicerage906
Summary: The legendary battle between Dumbledore and Grindelwald that would not only change history, but also the two greatest wizards of the age.


a/n: This is my take on the Dumbledore and Grindelwald battle... I just couldn't help myself! I cried at the end of Deathly Hallows when Dumbledore said Grindelwald showed remorse later in life, and I had to write this. Many thanks to my friend shakespeares_nightingale - she's always been supportive of me! I'd like to also dedicate this to my other best friends, the_valiant_child and supertemp! You guys are inspirational, I was thinking of you all when I was writing this!

**Chicken Soup for the Dark Wizard's Soul**

The young soldier shuddered against the ground as a plethora of coloured lights streamed overhead, absurd and deathly fireworks against the night sky. He could feel the earth tremor as the spells made their mark and the deafening explosions that seemed to come from everywhere.

He didn't know where the rest of his fellows soldiers were, although the sick feeling in his gut told him they were already dead. They had never really stood a chance to begin with, but too soon they had been forced to scatter against the overwhelming opposition that lay before them. At least they had fought, he thought desperately as a spell came dangerously close to his head and he was forced to slink deeper into the mud. People were still fighting - that had to count for something, didn't it?

As he heard the shrieking cries of unnameable dark creatures from somewhere in the distance, the young soldier shuddered once again and steeled himself. He had to move, had to run, had to get away from here. If he continued to lie on the ground, something - or someone - would catch up to him and he would die, alone and defenseless. He grasped his wand a little tighter in his hand and raised his head slightly, still wary of the volley of spells that followed him forwards. He began to crawl slowly, arduously, forward. Praying to whatever deity would have him at that moment, he pulled himself to his knees, and then even more gradually to his feet, and he started forward once more, ducking low and keeping his eyes fixed firmly in front of him. _Don't look back_, he told himself. _You can't look back. There's nothing you can do for them now._

He reached the line of trees at last, sagging momentarily against the trunk of a particularly large evergreen. There was a little more cover here, but it still wasn't safe enough; he had to keep moving. With more effort than it seemed he had ever exerted in his life, the soldier hauled his body away from the trunk and stumbled on. The world was functioning on a tilt, and he could still hear the spells and explosions, somewhat muted now, that urged him to continue.

He heard the relief camp ahead before he saw it - the yells and screams of dying soldiers, harried Healers barking orders and the odd _crack!_ of someone Apparating in or - more likely - out. A novice Healer rushed forward as he reached the edge of the camp, fighting the desire to collapse at her feet.

"Smithwick, we've got another one - come on, we'll help you, just lean on me -"

"No," he coughed, too weak to pull himself away from her but determined all the same. "No. Dumbledore. I need - Dumbledore - he's here?"

"Somewhere," the novice said dismissively.

"No," the soldier gasped. "I need - Dumbledore -"

A warm hand descended on his shoulder, and he turned to look into the brilliant blue of eyes of his former professor. He seized the hand like a drowning man would cling to his savior, and whispered "Grindelwald. He's here, he's - killed them. They fell -"

The soldier didn't know what he was saying anymore, and it didn't matter. Dumbledore nodded once, then pulled his wrist away, drawing his wand with a flick. His face was hard and determined, as if he regretted what he was about to do.

"Stay here," he ordered softly. "I'll go. He's - he's my responsibility."

"Dumbledore, you can't go!" cried another wizard on the man's other side. "There are dark creatures out there, curses are coming down like rain - if you can even get close enough to him -"

"He'll meet me," he replied calmly. "This ends here, tonight, one way or another."

"Good luck," the soldier whispered solemnly. "If - if anyone can kill him, it's you."

"I can't just kill him," Dumbledore said, gazing out at nothing in particular. "I have to offer him a chance. I - I have to save him."

He wondered how his voice didn't shake, how his hands didn't tremble, how his legs didn't carry him far from this place. He was glad that his body didn't betray the dread that was clawing away at his insides, or the fear that laced his blood and made him feel slightly dizzy and sick. He somehow managed to move away from the relief camp, his body taking him through the forest, closer to the the sound of war.

As Dumbledore stepped out from the tree at the very edge of the forest, the last obstacle between him and his fate, the air deadened with a sudden quiet that seemed to actively mute the sounds of his feet as he moved across the field. Grindelwald knew he was here. Good. That would make it much easier... or much harder.

Grindelwald was standing in the middle of the field, half turned towards Dumbledore as if waiting for him to catch up. Dumbledore could see the Elder Wand clasped in his hand, although he made no effort to raise it in either defense or attack. He merely eyed Dumbledore as the man drew nearer.

Dumbledore stopped a short distance away. He took a deep breath. "I know what you've done, Gellert," he said quietly. "I know what you've done - to people, to yourself - to get here. How many people have you killed?"

Grindelwald left out a laugh, his face twisting briefly into a comic imitation of the joy that had so filled the young man Dumbledore had once known. The laugh was soon swallowed up, and Grindelwald look disgusted.

"Of course you know," he said. "You were there. You remember how it all started - for the greater good, remember? Don't you? When we were young, and we used to scream out our brilliance to the world? Do you?" He ended with a shout, still glaring. Hate and rage corrupted his once handsome features, blurring and changing the contours of his face that Dumbledore had once spent so long memorizing with sight and touch.

"I can save you," Dumbledore said suddenly. For his old friend, his best friend, was there any distance he wasn't willing to go, anything he wasn't willing to sacrifice to save him? He had to listen, he had to. He couldn't be so far gone that he refused to listen to reason. "Please, let me help."

Grindelwald shot him a withering look. "Oh, Albus, you really just don't get it, do you?" he said in a pitying sort of way, almost as if speaking to a small child. "I've got the Wand -" he brandished it before him for the first time, "- the unbeatable wand, the greatest of the Hallows, everything we ever thought and dreamed of -" he reached up and tapped it against his skull, laughing, "- and you've got... Well. I suppose you brother is still alive, isn't he?"

"What good are the Hallows if you destroy yourself in the Quest?" Dumbledore staggered closer. He had to make him see reason, had to make him change his mind... He didn't know what would happen if Grindelwald refused to listen to reason, but he had long ago felt the tendrils of fate wrap them together, and he knew that the Dark Wizard's fate was tied inextricably with his own. He couldn't lose him. He couldn't. "They're not worth it if you kill yourself mastering them."

"The Hallows are everything," Grindelwald exclaimed hoarsely, his eyes widening with the fury of someone denouncing sacrilege. "What would I be without them?"

Dumbeldore shook his head. "The Hallows are nothing," he pleaded. "What about us? Have you ever wondered what I would be without you?"

Grindelwald snorted. "Are you going to ask me out on a _date_?" The 'again' hung in the air, implied. He regarded Dumbledore coldly.

His old friend gazed at him, sadly. "You could be brilliant, you know," he said.

"I already _am_ brilliant."

"I mean it," Dumbledore insisted. "You're a genius, you really are. Just - brilliant. Stone cold brilliant. And you could be so much more - you - you could be beautiful. _We_ could be so much more. We could work together... it would be my honour."

Grindelwald was standing stock-still, his face impassive. Was there a chance, perhaps, that his mind could be changed? He had to believe there was, or else all hope was lost. Dumbledore pressed on.

"You don't need to control the world," he said. "Don't you see? You could be a great scholar, or a professor, and help pass down your wisdom to future generations - _please_. Helping the world - that is power enough. That is the greatest honour. What could be better?"

Grindelwald's face contorted with fury, and he brought the wand down in a grand sweep. Dumbledore threw himself sideways as the air exploded next to him, a shock of green light that burnt the air. Curse after curse volleyed down, and so suddenly he found himself hurtling curses - deadly curses, curses to maim and torture and ruin - against his best friend, against the boy he had loved that summer in Godric's Hollow.

The power of the Elder Wand was both great and terrible to witness, and its fury was matched - or perhaps fueled - by that of the man wielding it. It took Dumbledore a while to notice - helped, no doubt, by his efforts to assuage the assault and put forth his own offensive - that Grindelwald was screaming something besides spells.

"Everything!" he screamed, swiping viciously with the Wand. "Everything! _Everything_!"

"Please!" Dumbledore cried. "I'm asking you - properly - to just stop, please, just _think_!"

At last, one of his spells struck its mark on Grindelwald's chest, and the wizard fell back, his wand flying out of his hand and falling to the ground some distance away. He lay on the ground, looking up at Dumbledore with narrowed eyes.

"Go on, then," he panted. "Do it. Kill me."

"No," Dumbledore said. "I can fix this. I can fix _you_. You're my responsibility... if only I had stood in your way, all those years ago... maybe none of this would have happened. I'll take you back to Hogwarts, you'll be safe there."

"You mean..." Grindelwald's face twisted with disgust. "You're just going to _keep_ me?"

"I... No." Dumbledore let out a frustrated sigh. "Perhaps... perhaps I've been at Hogwarts for too long. Maybe it's time I settled down, time I cared for someone else. I could take care of you. Gellert, I could _help_ you."

Grindelwald was silent for several long moments, his body lying spread eagle on the ground. Then his shoulders visibly collapsed against the ground, and his eyes closed. He had the look of a man who had been thoroughly defeated, but in an odd way Dumbledore could see that he looked _happy_ - happy to be relieved of the burden of power, happy to surrender, happy at the prospect of being cared for.

"Can you fix me, Albus?" Grindelwald whispered, pulling himself to his knees. He let a choked noise that sounded somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Can you?"

Dumbledore rushed forward and fell to his knees, embracing his oldest and greatest friend. They held each other for what seemed like eternity, both of them crying, both of them mourning what was lost yet celebrating what they had gained.

"Crying in your arms," Grindelwald coughed out against his sleeve. "Happy now?"

"We can do this, together," Dumbledore told him. "We can leave, we can go far across the world... we can go anywhere."

"No," rasped Grindelwald. "Nurmengard. I shall go... you have the wand, Albus. I shall pay for my crimes... alone."

Dumbledore let out a sob as the two friends huddled together, briefly reunited by the war-torn earth. He knew that he couldn't change Grindelwald's mind, and that perhaps it would be the best for everyone, in time. They both knew that their time together would be short, but Dumbledore knew, then, that even the briefest of time made all the difference in the world - for no one was beyond saving.


End file.
